Chapter 9
“Idon’t have the first idea how to play ‘Best Guesses,’” Mrs. Padmore said that night as they all gathered in the drawing room for an evening of parlor games, “although I suspect it involves guessing.”
Tacey smiled along with her. Those two had become legitimate friends over the few days the Padmores had been at Aventine Manor.
Mercury was happy for both of them. He’d not ever had a friend.
Not really. He felt the first flickers of it with Tacey; would that grow to true friendship with time?
He hoped so. But he also knew that he couldn’t ever be fully honest with her about who he was and where he’d come from.
Friendships couldn’t really be built on lies.
“The game is quite simple,” Mercury said to Mrs. Padmore, “but also very entertaining.” And enlightening, which was the reason he had chosen it.
He needed further insights into his clients.
“We will divide all the players into two teams, who will sit facing each other. The team who begins the game will choose someone among them to stand in the middle of the group, facing their team. The opposing team will choose one of their number to stand silently behind the one the other team chose. It is the task of the one facing his or her team to ask questions—questions that cannot be direct inquiries—that will allow him or her to accurately guess the identity of the other person who is standing.”
“No direct inquiries?” Mr. Padmore pressed. “Meaning, for example, the question cannot be ‘Is the person behind me Miss Wilde?’”
“Even less direct than that. Questions such as ‘Are they a ghost?’ Or ‘Are they tall?’ are not permitted. The object is to use circuitous logic to reach the correct conclusion.”
“That sounds like an enjoyable challenge,” Mr. Padmore said.
They were quickly divided into two teams and arranged themselves facing each other.
Mr. Padmore was elected by their team—he being placed on the same side as Mercury—to go first. He stood and faced them.
Behind him, the others, utilizing gestures and mouthed words, selected Weeping William to stand—or hover, as the case was—behind Mr. Padmore.
And, with that, the game began.
Mr. Padmore posed his first question. “Is it at all possible that the one behind me could have crossed paths with Queen Elizabeth?”
Clever. Mr. Padmore not only referenced a conversation from a previous day but had also found a means of discovering if the one behind him was a ghost. Mercury needed to select for them a ghost who was particularly clever.
“It is possible,” Mr. Sappington said.
The Quiet Queen, who had been the one to speak of Queen Elizabeth originally, tilted her chin enough to slightly elongate her neck. Her lips curled in approval.
“Were we to undertake a game of croquet,” Mr. Padmore continued, “could the one behind me be a participant or would they be relegated to an observer only?”
Another clever question. Not all ghosts could manipulate objects.
“A participant,” Gary the Green said.
Mr. Padmore nodded slowly, his eyes narrowing a bit even as his mouth twisted in thought. A few of Mercury’s ghosts could move objects, though Mr. Padmore would not have met all of them.
“Were I to pay the ghost behind me a sincere compliment,” Mr. Padmore asked, “what would be his response?”
No one on their team needed to answer. Weeping William immediately began weeping. That set the room to laughing.
“The one behind me is Weeping William,” Mr. Padmore declared, clearly quite confident in his answer.
The room applauded and congratulated him on his very well played turn.
Mercury congratulated himself at having learned that a clever ghost, but also one who enjoyed games of wit, would be an excellent match for him.
But did his wife feel the same? Her attachment was the one Mercury needed to keep.
He could, if the Padmores wished, trade both of their ghosts for two of his.
But it was the Cream Canary alone who was crucial.
The opposing team selected Professor Daskalov to take his turn at guessing.
He floated to the center and turned to face them.
Quickly exchanged glances among Mercury’s team led to Signora Bellona hovering behind the professor.
This would be an interesting round: the Professor was very clever and the Signora was seldom quiet.
“It would do little good to ask if the one behind me is sleeping, as we know only one of us is doing that.” The Professor smiled as he nodded toward little Baby Blue curled up on the sofa next to where the Professor had been sitting.
They all smiled and ahhed. Everyone loved Baby. It couldn’t be helped.
“Instead,” the Professor said, “I will ask, were there a room that contained no doors and no windows and never had contained such things, could the one behind me be found in that room?”
“Was the room already in existence when the one behind you entered or was the room built around them?” the Other Hand asked.
“Excellent inquiry, and a complication I hadn’t thought of.” The Professor addressed his next question directly to the Other Hand. “Were the room already in existence, could the one behind me enter it?”
“Yes,” the Other Hand said. “Though that leaves open the question of whether the one behind you would want to enter that room.”
“If entering the room meant the one entering it could be in Europe, would that be more motivating or less?”
“For nostalgia’s sake,” the Other Hand answered, “I suspect more motivating, but there is also the possibility that being confined to such a room would detract from an otherwise enjoyable dash about the Continent.”
“Nostalgia, you say.” The Professor nodded. “So, it is a ghost and one who has previously been on the Continent and has given us all reason to believe it was an overall favorable experience.”
“Or at least pleasant enough for the specter to be willing to return and try again,” the Other Hand said.
“Excellent counterpoint.” The Professor rubbed at his ghostly chin. “Were this hypothetical return trip to Europe to take place in an area particularly known for opera and art and sculpture and wine, would the ghost currently behind me be more eager to participate?”
“I would guess this ghost would be ecstatic,” the Other Hand said. “Or bored by virtue of having experienced it all before.”
The Other Hand’s tendency to debate hadn’t disconcerted Professor Daskalov in the least. Very interesting.
The Professor gave a firm nod. “Behind me is none other than the lovely Signora Bellona.”
Hearty congratulations were offered among the enthusiastic applause. Before the Professor sat, he asked the Signora a question.
“Which is correct? Would you be ecstatic or bored?”
Looking somehow both amused and offended, she declared, “One can never be bored of Italy.”
The Signora floated back to their team’s side of the room.
“I will take my turn next,” Mercury offered. His team readily accepted.
He’d anticipated needing the entirety of the evening to determine in which direction to nudge his clients. He had, instead, required only two brief rounds of their game. The answer had likely been obvious from the beginning despite his inability to see it.
Mercury stepped to the middle of the room, then turned to face his team. Once he received indication that someone was behind him, he began his guessing, though winning his round was the least of his goals.
“Has the one behind me very recently shown himself to be exceptionally clever and skilled at games of intellect, especially when paired with the Other Hand?”
With a chuckle, Mr. Sappington said, “It is not the Professor.”
Mercury smiled. He let his eyes linger on Mr. Padmore a moment. “They did make a very good team, didn’t they?”
“Exceptionally good,” was the response.
Mercury let that sink in as he thought on his next question, one that he hoped would inch Mr. Sappington’s thoughts in a particular direction. “If you were required to guess, and you are, do you believe the one behind me would be as enthusiastic about a trip to Europe as Signora Bellona would be?”
His team whispered about it among themselves, but there didn’t seem to be an obvious answer. If it was a ghost behind him, this uncertainty would tell Mr. Sappington that he ought to take that ghost off his list of potential swaps.
“I suspect the person most likely to know the answer to that is on the other team,” Mr. Padmore said.
“Your wife is on the other team,” Mercury said pointedly.
Mr. Padmore smiled knowingly.
“Ah. Your wife, of everyone, might know answers about Miss Wilde with greater certainty than you or Mr. Sappington. I will guess, then, that the one behind me is Miss Wilde herself.”
The usual applause and words of congratulation followed, telling Mercury he had guessed correctly.
He retook his seat, which placed him between Mr. Padmore and Mr. Sappington. While the other team debated who would play next, Mr. Padmore leaned closer to Mercury.
“The Other Hand and Professor Daskalov did work very well together.”
“Exceptionally well,” Mercury said. “And neither seemed at all annoyed by the other’s approach to the game or their method of finding information.”
Mr. Padmore made a sound of pondering, which Mercury hoped meant he was piecing together a solution to their disharmonious household ghosts.
Mercury had found that, while strong nudges were sometimes needed, not applying pressure to clients usually made things smoother.
Leaving the man to ponder that, Mercury turned to Mr. Sappington.
“I have not ever thought to describe the Italian peninsula as a land of art and sculpture, but the Professor’s words are entirely accurate. I hope you are including that part of Europe in your artistic travels.”
“I am,” Mr. Sappington said. And that pulled the young artist’s eyes to Signora Bellona. “More than half of my time on the Continent will be spent in that area of Europe.”
“I hope you will write and tell us about your adventures.”
Mercury left his commentary at that as the game resumed. He didn’t raise the topic of ghosts or swaps the rest of the evening; he knew he didn’t need to.
Indeed, as the game wound to an end and the teams disassembled, Mr. Padmore and his wife were very soon in conversation with Professor Daskalov. Mr. Sappington watched Signora Bellona with interest.
All it had needed was a nudge. Mercury had tied himself in knots for no reason, which was entirely unlike him.
He would get a good night’s sleep and set himself to rights. And he had every expectation that, come morning, both his clients would be approaching him ready to discuss a Transferal.